Britain, Britain, Britain

Like the unelected line manager of this great country, The Lyre believes in the hard-working, pioneering, independent, creative, adaptable, optimistic, can-do spirit of Britain. If we all pull together, we can run this ship aground.

It's a spirit that we see in the London Review of Cakes, who have ended their near-four-year neglect of British-baked poetry with a nibble at the selected poems of Peter Porter.

That's leadership.

Technically, of course, Porter was an Australian poet. But he did keep a cat here -- so to speak -- for most of his life. So in recognition of the LRB's gesture towards the spirit of the Commonwealth, we are resetting the counter in our right hand column. We're sure it won't be long until they give another much needed shot in the foot to Britain's small poetic businesses.

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Someone else flying the flag hard this month is Roddy Lumsden, who has just launched Salt's new Christmas annual, Britain's Got the Poetry Factor and Possibly A New Celebrity Paul Muldoon Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice.

'The format of the book', admits the introduction, 'owes a debt to The Best American Poetry series of anthologies.'

A debt, of course, is something you intend to pay off, and Salt no doubt have deficit reduction arrangements in place for loan of the Best American concept and typography. The clever twist to the UK version, though, is that the best British poets aren't, on the whole, represented. As Lumsden writes:

The word ['best'] irks some people who feel that the subjective nature of selecting and editing a book like this is at odds with such an objective word as ‘best’. I can see that, but there is no manifesto behind the word, no ulterior motive. If it really bothers anyone, a cup of tea and a nap might help.

That's leadership.

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The 'Best' British Poetry draws from poetry published in UK magazines over the last year. But it doesn't include the late R.F. Langley's 'To a Nightingale', winner of the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem this week.

The Lyre noted the appearance of Langley's poem in the London Review of Books last November. Lumsden doesn't take anything from the LRB, though, on the undeniable grounds that it 'seems to favour non-UK poets on the whole'.

The Lyre sympathises. Langley was, in many ways, as good as an American. To the untrained eye, it might take a whole box of PG Tips and a coma to tell the difference. Fortunately, the LRB have responded to the radical demands of the Nationalise Poetry Day activists, and made the poem free to all at the point of need. You can read it here.